spinning circles in our souls
by AceralRayneRaith
Summary: It starts out with one boy.  And a broken heart.  It ends with another.  And a heart so full that it sings.


Hello, gentle reader. This is a fluffy drabble mess. Or, as we in the biz like to call it: fluffydrabblemess. Or maybe that's just me. Life is busy, as always, and I'm so ridiculously happy that we now have an epic cheese plate of a tale before us. Valentine's Day is just around the corner, after all, and John better make shit good this year. That's all I'm saying. XD

So, yeah. This is another of my favorite couple: TakaHaru. Well, it starts out TamaHaru, but that changes quickly enough. I tried a different technique this time; usually I put a lot of dialogue into things (apparently, I _rock_ the whole dialogue thing), but I really tried to avoid that this time around.

Any grammar mistakes are my own—this is what I do when I want to avoid writing the paper I have due tomorrow at four. You're welcome.

So, I guess I'll stop rambling. See y'all at the bottom.

* * *

He comes out to her on a Saturday. It's gorgeous outside, and they're sitting at this little café down the road from her apartment. It's their sixth month anniversary, and she's planned a whole day for the two of them, forgoing the sale that's going on at the market so she can be here with him.

He grabs her hands and she waits for another flowery declaration of love. She's going to say it back today, and her stomach is in knots.

The declaration is not the one she's expecting.

So, she sits there, stomach all in knots for an entirely different reason, holding his hands even though she feels all cold and hot and not good.

He says that a part of him still loves her, but it isn't romantic. It isn't her; he just doesn't like her gender in that way. It wasn't anything she did; he just decided to stop pretending to be someone he's not. He's pulling away all of the stereotypical excuses and leaving her with absolutely nothing but herself to blame (because, maybe, if he just left her with _something_, then she wouldn't be hating herself so much).

All she can think about is that this boy was her first male kiss and first everything else, and it _hurts_.

Eventually, he shuts up, waiting for a response, that charmingly pretty smile of his frozen on his face, and she smiles and assures him it's fine, she's fine, their friendship is fine.

But it isn't.

He smiles, offers her a ride home (even though he has a date), ever the gentleman. She tells him that she's going to a sale with a false smile.

He leaves, reluctantly, after a good five minutes of her repeating this.

He feels badly, yes, because he does love her (just not like that) and wants her to be happy.

He's nineteen years old and he's just come out to his (now) ex-girlfriend.

She tries not to cry, asks for the check, and stumbles home.

She's eighteen years old and she's just lost her future.

* * *

A day later, she tells her father that she's leaving (it takes her approximately two hours to pack, write a letter, and beg for the man to make some excuses for the other members of the Host Club) and buys a plane ticket.

* * *

She calls him on a Sunday to tell him she's coming to the States and could he maybe pick her up at the airport and how is he doing. It's all pleasantries, but he's a pretty astute, smart man who knows she's lying.

(Plus, his cousin called. This rumor of a breaking has shaken the old group of hosts to their handsome, rich cores.)

But he also knows that it'd be stupid to push her. So he agrees, and she tells him she got into Yale. It's the best law school in America, and he knows she'll be fine. Because she's who she is, and this is her dream.

He tells her, conveniently, he's opening up a martial arts dojo for the family just down the road (a lie), and she sounds so utterly relieved to hear that she'll know someone else in this foreign country that he'd lie again.

He's been in love with her since the very first time he picked her up, but he's never told her. He plans to remedy this.

He's twenty years old, and he's finally getting his chance.

* * *

America is different. And it's absolutely terrifying. (More than a Kyoya with no sleep and a Hunny-sempai with no Usa-chan.) The people are loud, and they say all sorts of crude things that she blushes upon hearing. They, however, do not, and they speak so quickly that her lips tremble and turn down when she hears how fast-paced everything falls from their lips (she had always done so well in her English studies, but now, half of the words aren't in her vocabulary, and they trip along in different dialects). She wants to cry.

It's a relief to see him. So, when she throws herself at him? It's just because he's like home.

And not, at all, because his hair looks beautiful as it's back-lit by the heavy fluorescent lights that make his gray eyes glow. Or because he's like a pillar of serenity that she knows she can cling to when it seems like it's going to hell.

Which, right now, in this strange country with these strange people and their strange ways, it pretty much is.

She hasn't seen him since her graduation two months ago. After he graduated, he did the unthinkable and left Japan to study in America. And to open up various martial arts studios for his family, but that's totally different. Hunny-sempai visited periodically, coming on campus for an overdone, well-organized 'Host Club Lunch', but it wasn't the same.

(The new recruits that were brought in just didn't quite fill the same places in her heart.)

A part of her that she didn't quite understand longed for the understanding silence the gentle giant represented. But, now, it's all like a bad dream.

She inhales and (practically) tries to bury herself into him, and he's content just to feel her because she's all tight muscles and soft skin and curves and he loves this girl.

He takes her back to his place, a lovely two-bedroom apartment that's ten minutes from her school, and he waits for her to start talking.

She starts at the beginning (of course, because she's Haruhi, and that's the only _logical_ way to do things if you want to do them properly), and he listens even though certain moments make his chest _ache_.

It's all because she's worth it though.

* * *

When Tamaki entered his senior year, he got over the fact that he wasn't Haruhi's father.

He got over it because he realized that all of those feelings he'd been experiencing weren't… fatherly. (After all, he could be a bit dense because he just cared about everyone else so much that he didn't even take the time to self-actualize, and he hadn't really come from the most traditional set of relationships.)

So, he asked out the Princess of the Host Club.

Everyone was, needless to say, shocked. Especially the girls who visited the Club every afternoon.

They'd had _no_ ideas that their princely type was… _gay_.

(This later proves to be more true than anyone realized.)

And then, the Shadow King stepped in. And he spun it in only a way he could spin it.

Profits _soared_.

And, Tamaki could now hug Haruhi in public without being accused of incest or something else of an equally deplorable nature.

He declares his love for her after one week.

They don't realize it, but this is where the end of them begins.

* * *

After, she's in tears. She tells about how the King was her first male kiss, and how he was her first attempt at opening up in a way that she hasn't opened up since her mother.

To make her feel better, Takashi tells her he's never kissed a girl.

(This isn't that surprising to those who know him. He isn't the type to go around spreading something like that.)

To make him feel better, she leans over and brushes her lips against his.

She pulls away and murmurs, "No big deal, ne?"

He can't disagree enough.

This moment between them is everything.

* * *

It takes him approximately four hours to convince her to move in. She's so relieved (though she won't admit it) that she hugs him again, and he knows that even if he hadn't had this planned out (since he got the call, actually), he'd go out and find a place for the two of them.

* * *

The first time they sleep together (in the same bed), it's because she crawls in with him and says, "Bad dream."

She burrows into his chest and breathes deeply, and he has to remind himself not to touch the gentle curve of her waist or the soft silk of her hair.

He doesn't get much sleep, but when she looks at him with those huge, doe eyes and whispers a quiet, "Arigato."? He knows that he'd give up countless nights of sleep to have her look at him like that again.

It's the start of something more, whether or not they realize it at that instant. Because, after that night, she finds more excuses to come join him, and he finds better excuses to touch more of her.

* * *

They don't go on dates because it's more like _going out_ to various places with just the two of them present (to couple-y places).

In fact, the relationship is so subtle that they don't even realize they're committed until one of Haruhi's friends from law school points it out.

The girl, a beautiful blonde, is a slim thing, curved in the right places, Southern, with eyes so big and blue that they're visible from outer space. (She has nothing on his Haru, though.) She's been in her relationship since her freshman year of high school (as she liked to boast), and the rings that she wears on her left hand aren't new.

One day, she looks at them and squeals in a way that only American girls have seemed to master and practically blubbers out a, "You guys remind me so much of Rudolf and me! It's so beautiful how in love y'all are!"

Haruhi manages to look shocked. Because she's who she is and she's always been a bit oblivious when it comes to these things.

So, she looks up at him, and he can just smile gently at her.

And, of course, he loves her. But that's no secret, just unsaid.

(He wants to be sure she's over Tamaki. He plans to be her end game; he just needs for her to realize it too.)

* * *

After that, the introductions change for them. He's now '[her] boyfriend, Takashi', and she's 'the love of [his] life, Haruhi'.

She blushes prettily whenever he says that. (When no one is looking, she rewards him with a kiss every time.)

* * *

He finds ways to work it into whatever conversation, whenever possible.

He's hopelessly addicted to Haruhi kisses.

* * *

The first time they make love is a Sunday and a year after _he _broke up with her.

A week later, he takes her to City Hall and makes her his officially.

* * *

The honeymoon period never really dies for the two in the next couple of years; everyone takes this as a great sign.

It never will.

* * *

She's five years into her schooling when she decides that she doesn't want to be a lawyer anymore. She's done her two years of prelaw and two years of Criminal Justice, and she's over it. She's telling him that she wants to be a mom instead and not get sick and never leave.

He just wants to make her happy, so he agrees. (A part of him really wants to see her belly all round with his baby, but he doesn't tell her that (vocally).) He kisses her and thinks that maybe she understands in the way that only she can because of how she responds.

* * *

She tells him she's pregnant three weeks later.

* * *

The second it's safe for her to travel, they're on a plane back to Japan. Kyoya knows they're coming and assembles the Host Club at the airport.

She's instantly engulfed in hugs until Takashi steps in because that's his wife and that's his baby and they're precious, precious, _precious_. Tamaki stands in the back and pretends not to cry when he sees her all glowing and happy.

A part of him hates the gentle giant for being the kind of man that he couldn't. A much larger part hates himself because he still loves her.

The ex-couple doesn't touch, but Haruhi looks over at him and nods, and he eagerly laps it up because it's the first step in forgiveness that he needed for her to take.

(It will take years for her to fully forgive him, but he's the first person she turns to when she asks for a godfather for her child.

After all and in a way, this all started because of him.)

* * *

It's a Monday when she gives birth. The nurse, an attractive brunette who has been her biggest cheerleader since she entered the hospital, murmurs an excerpt of the English nursery poem from their prized Mother Goose.

"Monday's child is fair of face."

She is the most beautiful child he has ever seen with these wide slate-gray eyes and dark tufts of hair. And she's so tiny.

He doesn't want to touch her she's so small. One look at the hands he always thought were gentle and slim, and they become fat and meaty and callused.

So, he watches as his wife cuddles her, cooing, more docile than he's ever seen her.

(He doesn't pretend that the image is so perfect that a tear doesn't come to his eye.)

It's only when, Haruhi, who doesn't want to put the baby down or turn her over to the nurses, turns to her husband, yawning, and extends his new daughter.

"Takashi, will you hold her please?"

He has to remind himself to be gentle, but he relieves his exhausted wife of the babe, and it's just like that that everything changes.

He's twenty-five years old and his life has just shifted infinitely to revolve around this baby girl he clutches to the heart that now belongs to both his wife and their daughter.

* * *

They name her 'Megumi' because she's their blessing.

* * *

They're in the hospital three more times for three more births; every single time, it is still as magical and life-altering.

* * *

It's a Saturday in the Morinozuka household, and it's noisy. (It's never _not_ noisy, but the parents thrive off of it.) His oldest, now a lanky, fairly androgynous twelve-year old (with the most beautiful face in the world), reigns over her siblings with an iron, but gentle fist. The youngest, a babe of a few months, gurgles as his siblings whiz by, blinking clear, brown eyes and waving pudgy baby fists at all.

The Host Club (and their families) spends nearly every day at the rambling, large Morinozuka home.

(The former Princess of the Host Club tried to argue for something more 'reasonable', but when everyone started showing up, she just stayed quiet and silently agreed with her husband when he said they would need the space.)

Silently, he watches the children play and scramble and dance and their parents laugh, and his wife comes to his side. And she looks up at him with those soft, brown eyes, and she beams.

In her eyes, he sees the future.

He's thirty-seven years old, and he's finally gotten his end game.

* * *

…Well, now that we've effectively beat out Kraft Macaroni for 'The Cheesiest' Award, why don't you leave a review?

Tell me whatevs. It's cool. Let me know what you think because blue buttons make me smile.


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